The Center for Family and Demographic Research (CFDR) at Bowling Green State University (BGSU) is requesting funds to support a newly emerging center that has strong institutional support and generates innovative and policy-relevant research on the health, development and security of children, adolescents and families. We integrate demography with broad social scientific perspectives to identify mechanisms underlying demographic events and trends. The CFDR faculty's strengths address themes of adolescent development, immigration, health and mortality, and family structure and the well-being of children and adults. Much of the CFDR research focuses on high risk populations, uses multidisciplinary and multimethod investigations, and grounds the findings in policy relevance. The CFDR consists of a highly energized, research-active faculty from several disciplines. The CFDR is in a growth mode with strong momentum from both new faculty hires and success in obtaining federal funding. Without prior support from the NICHD Population Research Center Program, significant research contributions have been made already by the CFDR faculty. We are now at a pivotal stage in which funds from NIH would allow us to provide services that would generate and support new research and scientific knowledge that would not otherwise be possible. Our research goals are to increase research productivity in our four central domains (adolescent development, immigration, health, morbidity and mortality, and family), promote intra- and interdisciplinary research, and increase external funding for research. We will achieve these goals by investing in our Research Support and Developmental Cores. Our Research Support Core focuses on intellectual leadership and providing direct practical research assistance. We aim to improve our research environment by hosting seminars and workshops; enhancing access to and use of data; offering programming, statistical, and GIS training; supplying software; facilitating dissemination of research; making equipment investments, and coordinating services for grant preparation and submission. The mission of our Faculty Development core is to provide faculty research seed awards to promote new innovative work that crosses disciplinary boundaries. Support from NIH will create new research opportunities for the CFDR by fostering interdisciplinary exchanges among faculty, generating efficiencies in access to resources, promoting collaborative efforts, and enhancing research productivity.